jamotide: I like reading about history, but almost always I am very much horrified by it, for example the bombings of Cambodia,Vietnam or Laos, the leveling of North Korea,the Phoenix Programm, the Rape of Nanking,Unit 731, basically all of WW2 is unbelievably nightmarish.
Positive side of it is that you can laugh about fictional horror movies and how harmless they are compared to what people did to each other in reality.
So what I like about is history is maybe when bad things end, like when Clinton ended his support for the genocide in East Timor,too late,but still.
Try reading about China under Mao. Kinda makes everything else you mentioned look boring...